


May I Be Your Shield

by Never_Says_Die



Category: Walking Dead, Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, h/c
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-19
Updated: 2012-05-01
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:45:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Never_Says_Die/pseuds/Never_Says_Die
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in response to a prompt on the Walking Dead Kink Meme:  With Lori's pregnancy and the fast approaching winter, the group has been running Glenn ragged with supply runs.  Glenn's not complaining, though...everyone has to do their part, right?</p><p>Only, it's starting to take a toll on him--and Daryl seems to be the only one who notices.  </p><p>Pure, unapologetic H/C and fluff here.  Like, seriously, don't strain yourselves looking for plot.  Title from Trading Yesterday's "May I" if anyone is curious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking some liberties with timeline here...assumes this is post-CDC, but they're taking a lot longer to find the farm. Also, Daryl and Glenn are already a couple here, but only recently.

Daryl is a little bit ashamed that it takes him so long to notice that something is wrong with the kid. 

He knows that's a little bit irrational. It wasn't that long ago that none of these people registered with him beyond a basic head count to see how much hunting he needed to be doing. This... _thing_ between him and Glenn is even newer than his burgeoning awareness of and concern for the others, still in its infancy.

It had started as hurried, frantic encounters late at night. Jeans barely open at the fly. Clumsy fingers that were too dry and too fast. Mouths with too many teeth. Fast and desperate and inexperienced nights when the horrors of their new reality just got to be too much to bear. It was just sex--and not even that, not really--just a desperate need for something warm and normal and human.

Somewhere along the line, though, 'just sex' has evolved into something more. What, exactly, he's not sure. They're still learning each other, still skirting around boundaries and definitions like skittish colts. Daryl's only just learned to call the kid a friend--he's not sure he's ready to go farther than that, yet. this thing between them is clumsy and awkward, but it's slowly becoming something deeper. Something more. 

They spend more nights together than apart, keeping separate tents for appearance's sake, but one of them usually ends up slipping into the other's tent before dawn. Sometimes they don't do anything but talk all night, sleeping bags zipped together as they lie just inches apart, facing each other so that their breath mingles as they speak. Sometimes they barely get the tent flap zipped closed before they are on each other, tearing at clothes like it's a sporting event. Sometimes he wakes up with the kid draped over his chest, face pressed into the crook of his neck, and a part of him that is growing steadily larger and larger thinks that he could happily wake up like that every day for as long as he has left in this wreck of a world. 

They are something less than lovers (not that he'll ever use that word), but something more than fuck buddies and so when it strikes him in passing one day that Glenn looks like he's losing weight, he thinks he should have spotted it sooner. 

Daryl is sitting on top of the RV, taking the last of the daytime watch shifts over their latest campsite--a rest area just off the highway that consists of little more than a parking lot and a set of vending machines. It's no good for long-term camping...too close to the highways and not enough open ground to give them a clear enough sight of any Walkers approaching the vehicles. 

Lori's morning sickness has turned into all-day sickness, though, and the constant traveling is rough on her. The rest area is good enough for a couple days' break, to let Carol and Sophia fuss over her and give everyone a chance to stretch their legs while Rick and Shane argue for the hundredth time over where they need to be heading. 

He _sincerely_ hopes he lives long enough to see Lori actually pop that baby out...either Rick or Shane is in for a very big surprise. 

He is idly cleaning his last few crossbow bolts, waiting for Dale to crawl up onto the RV and relieve him, when his eyes fall on Glenn. They do that often, of late, far more often than he thinks they strictly should. The kid is sitting by the firepit with Carl and Sophia, patiently trying to teach them how to play cat's cradle with a length of red yarn dug up from one of the drawers in the RV. They are all three grinning and laughing as Carl proves horrible at it, and the sight is rare enough that he wants to commit it to memory. 

He lets his gaze linger on the kid, taking in every detail with a tiny smile on his own face...and it is then he notices how loose the kid's shirt looks on him. 

He doesn't think anything of it at first--they all take what they can get as far as scavenged clothes these days, and 'ill-fitting' is pretty standard--but something about it ticks at his subconscious. His brow furrows as he leans back in the old lawn chair set up on the RV's roof, and he finds his observation turning evaluative. He stares at Glenn with the same calculating intensity he stares at a target, a dozen little details jumping out at him suddenly that form a picture he very much does not like. 

Glenn is _thin_. The kid's always been pretty slight, and they're all tightening their belts these days (they're not starving, but nobody's going to get fat on stewed squirrel and canned peaches)...but Glenn looks like all his reserves are running on empty. There are circles standing out under his eyes, and when he finally passes the yarn off to the kids, his bright smile fades as soon as they run off to show Lori and Carol. 

He looks tired. Worn down and almost haggard in the late afternoon sunlight. 

The thought stirs something unpleasant in Daryl's gut, and he presses his lips together, still staring. The kid can't be sick. None of them has had so much as a cold to pass around, and he knows Glenn wouldn't keep an illness from the group. Not only is hiding things like that potentially suicidal these days...the kid has quite possibly the worst poker face Daryl's ever seen. The thought briefly occurs to him that maybe he's kept Glenn up too late at night, but the theory is rejected almost before it's formed. He's staying up just as late and not feeling any ill-effects, and he's got at least a decade on Glenn. 

His contemplations are interrupted when Dale at last heaves himself up the ladder. He nods shortly to the old man as he passes over the rifle they use while on watch, and gathers up his bolts and cleaning supplies. He clambers down the ladder easily, and heads over to the firepit. Glenn is still sitting on the ground beside it, poking aimlessly at the logs with a long, charred stick. He tilts his head slightly as he drops down to sit on one of the lawn chairs grouped around the fire, directly behind the kid. He pulls the last two bolts he needs to work on out of the bundle, and sets the rest of them on the ground by his feet. 

"Hey," Glenn says belatedly, still poking at the fire. "Anyone ever told you how creepy it is when you stare at something? You, like, don't even blink."

Daryl blinks, then ducks his head and pretends to be focused on checking the fletching on his last two bolts to hide his embarrassment at being caught out. "Nope," he mutters finally, "least wise, not ta' my face."

Glenn chuckles a little, finally abandoning the stick as it starts to burn. He doesn't ask what Daryl found so interesting, doesn't make anymore smartass remarks. They just sit, listening to the sounds of the camp as Daryl cleans his arrows. After a few minutes, Glenn leans back slightly, resting his weight against Daryl's legs. He grumbles a little, but shifts in his seat so that Glenn can rest his head against his knee. When Andrea passes them on her way into the RV and smirks knowingly, he only sort of means it when he glares back at her. 

He doesn't like how peaked the kid looks, but he holds his tongue. Glenn's a big boy, and if something is wrong he'll tell someone. Maybe not Daryl...but _someone_. That doesn't stop him from resolving to keep a sharper eye on his...on Glenn. 

It doesn't stop him from shoveling half his plate of beans and canned potatoes onto the kid's plate later that night, either.


	2. Chapter 2

Daryl keeps his promise to himself over the next few days, keeping a discreet eye on the kid. He knows the others probably wouldn't believe it, but he can be subtle when it suits him. Given the reaction he got when Glenn finally cottoned on to the fact that he was sharing his rations at every meal, subtle definitely suits him. He has no idea what the kid was calling him (he'd barely passed high school Spanish; Korean was completely beyond him even if he'd cared to learn), but he knows good and well when he's being cussed out. So he watches the kid as discreetly as he can...and he doesn't like what he sees.

He'd thought maybe he was just being paranoid. So Glenn was looking a little thin and tired; so what? It's the goddamn Apocalypse, they're all looking a little thin and tired. He knows he's not imagining that Glenn looks worse than everyone else, though. He's not imagining the way his cheeks are hollowing out, or the dark circles that have taken up permanent residence under his eyes. He's not imagining that everything about the kid looks...diminished. Dulled.

He's not imagining it. He's just not sure what to _do_ about it. If there's anything he can do. If there's anything he _should_. The entire situation has him twisted up in knots, and he doesn't like it one bit. He especially doesn't like that he's pretty sure the main reason he's so wound up is that it's _Glenn_. He feels bad that Lori Grimes is having such a rough time, but he's not going to lose sleep over it.

He's stopped pretending he doesn't give a damn about the rest of the group. He won't say it out loud, but in the privacy of his mind, he considers most of them friends, now. He knows he'll follow Rick anywhere the man leads, and he suspects he'd die for Carol and her daughter without even a second thought (though he sincerely hopes he never has to test that theory). And all right, Glenn is...important to him. More than any of the others. He's just not sure he's ready to examine how much more important. He's confused. He's irritated. He's worried, and he's not used to worrying about anyone but himself. 

Glenn looks worse and worse as the days go by, and he's not sure what he can _do_. He's never been sick much. When he was, the most he'd ever done was sack out on the couch and drink Gatorade instead of beer. Merle and his pa sure as hell never gave a damn when he was feeling poorly...he's not exactly sure what the protocol is. He's not even sure if Glenn is sick. Surely if something was really wrong, Glenn would have said something. Or someone else would have. He can't be the only one who notices. He wants to believe that, but the worry still sits in his chest as he watches the kid, tight and heavy as lead. 

It takes him almost a week to put everything together. 

They are back on the road, after only a single night at the rest stop. They'd meant to stay at least a couple days, but a knot of about ten Walkers wandering in off the highway that first morning had put paid to that idea. He doesn't like how the things seem to be traveling in packs outside of the cities. In the close quarters of Atlanta, it made sense to see swarms. Out along the highways, that speaks to at least a rudimentary hunting instinct in his eyes. He doesn't want to think about the Walkers being able to strategize even on the level of wild animals. 

They've been trundling north--vaguely in the direction of the fort Shane's been harping about, but none of them has any real faith they'll find anything there. Lori's sickness is forcing them to stop at least twice a day. It would have pissed him off only a few short weeks ago...but it doesn't seem right getting angry at anyone who looks as miserable as Lori Grimes does. Besides, the stops give him more time to hunt. No one likes to talk about it, but they lost most of their supplies when they were forced to flee the CDC. They're running low on everything, and anything he can bring to the table, so to speak, is going to help. 

They stop for the night in an empty lot just off an exit ramp from the highway. There's a concrete foundation that might have belonged to a gas station at one point, and everyone is pleased not to have to clear space to set up the tents. The lot backs right up to the woods and he spends a few hours tramping through the brush, managing to scare up a couple of rabbits. The sun's setting when he makes his way back to camp, and he's surprised to find the atmosphere much lighter than it was when he left. 

The reason quickly becomes clear when he sees Carol crouched over the fire with one of their larger frying pans. Lori and Rick are nowhere to be seen (probably in the RV), but everyone else is gathered around the fire, the expressions on their faces rather like a group of kids waiting for Christmas. He catches a whiff of whatever Carol is frying, and an involuntary grin breaks out on his face. 

The world _must_ have ended...the scent of SPAM frying in the air is setting his mouth watering like it's a turkey dinner. 

"Damn, who's been holdin' out on us?" he asks good-naturedly as he passes the firepit. He sets the crossbow down just inside his tent and tosses the rabbits into an empty cooler Glenn picked up on a supply run a couple of weeks ago for just that purpose. He'll skin and butcher them later, give them to Carol to stew up for breakfast. 

"Glenn found a convenience store about five miles up the road," Andrea calls over her shoulder as he dips a scrap of cloth into the water bucket beside his tent, using it to scrub off the worst of the blood and grit that had gotten on his hands while he was field dressing the rabbits. His brow furrows at her words. He knows damn well that Glenn knows what he's doing when it comes to supply runs, but he doesn't like the idea of the younger man doing a raid anywhere before they've had a chance to scout the area out more. 

"That so?" he asks, making his way back to the fire. Glenn is sitting on the ground in front of the fire, knees drawn up to his chest and arms slung loosely around them. Daryl ignores the empty lawn chair next to Dale and drops down onto the ground next to the kid, letting his knuckles lightly skate over the back of Glenn's neck as he sits. He ignores the old man's knowing, indulgent smile from across the fire...his whatever-it-is with Glenn may be a completely open secret in the group, but damned if he's going to acknowledge anything. 

"Mmmmhmm," Glenn murmurs, scooting a little closer so that their shoulders are brushing. "Pretty picked over, but I found some soup in the back. And the SPAM. There was a billboard for a strip mall about twenty miles away. I think I'm going to hit it tomorrow...at least see what the geek situation is."

He frowns again. "Sure that's a good idea?" he asks neutrally. He's always admired Glenn's tenacity and insistence on carrying his own weight (even back when they never exchanged two civil words), but the idea of the kid going of on another supply raid immediately doesn't sit right with him. Glenn just shrugs, though, and no one else voices protest, so he holds his tongue.

Dinner is a happier affair than it has been in a long time, fried SPAM and the last jar of applesauce going down like a Thanksgiving feast. It's almost enough for him to forget his concerns...but they come rushing back later that night when Glenn comes stumbling through his tent flap at the end of the first watch shift. Daryl isn't up for watch that night, and they'd usually make good use of having the rest of the night stretching before them uninterrupted. Glenn is fumbling at the buttons on his own jeans like he's forgotten how they work, though, his eyes practically falling shut even as Daryl kisses him, despite the fact that it's barely midnight. 

After a few moments, he sighs heavily, pushing the kid to lie down on his bedroll with gentleness most of the others would be surprised by. Glenn makes a vague noise of protest...but the protest dies pretty much as soon as his head hits the pillow. Daryl bites down on the inside of his cheek, before gently stripping off the kid's shoes an undoing his jeans for him. He slides into the bedroll beside Glenn, gathering the slighter body up close. This isn't right, and it isn't his imagination. 

It's not til he starts mentally tallying up how many supply runs and watch shifts Glenn has been doing lately, though, that he finally realizes what's going on.


End file.
